Tahitian dance chronicles, part three: Dancing towards a new adventure (video)

To’ata Amphitheater, French Polynesia’s biggest Tahitian dance venue, is an open-air wooden stage surrounded by a half-circle of tiered seating for about 4000 people. High-tech lighting on adjustable steel scaffolding surrounds the arena and the stage is backed by a covered, elevated platform for the orchestra. From the stage, the seats seem very close and standing there before the show made me nervous — would I be busting my not-exactly-professional moves while looking my family and friends in the eye? My 200-woman-strong Tahitian dance troupe had rehearsed nine months for this one-night show but as a newbie, this still didn’t seem like enough time to get it right. But here I was, the night of the show and it was too late to change my mind.

While setting up our changing areas before the show, we were told that the maman groups (those of us well-past high school age) couldn’t use the dressing rooms — we’d have to change costumes outside where inevitable lurking spectators could see us. This was not ideal.

Luckily my friend Arvella came to my rescue and said if I helped out dressing the little girl dancers I could use the private rooms. This sounded like a good deal. I got in my first costume, a flamboyant number made out of leaves and vines that made me look like a glamorous swamp monster, then got to work helping the girls. After putting make-up on the first eight-year old, word got around that I had cool sparkly stuff and soon I had a line of wide-eyed cuties asking me for silver eye-shadow and lip gloss; once they were made up I was onto hair and costumes.

We were all ready and could hear the stands a-chatter with people. It got dark without us noticing and soon we were getting called to take our places. My group was entering the stage from the spectator’s stands after the Advanced-Pro and teenage girls opened the show with flaming torches. We walked up to our starting place at the main entrance of To’ata where people were still buying tickets. Several tourists took pictures of us, and I reflected on how strange it was to finally be a tourist attraction just before moving back to the States after fifteen years in this country.Our drum signal beat and on we went, through the stands and on to the stage shaking our hips, our leaf skirts swishing. Boom, boom! Like a dream our arms were raising and falling, hips never resting, bent knees, straightened knees, spinning and shimming across the stage. We were giving every move all the energy we had. Looking into the bright lights it was impossible to see the audience. I could almost imagine that we were dancing on stage by ourselves; it was perfect. I forgot that my family and friends were even there.

Before I knew it, the first dance was over and we were back in the dressing room but this time there was more to do in less time. I threw on my white fitted dress and flower hair ornament for our next dance then set about putting some little girls’ hair in buns.

After bun number three I looked around and realized I was the only grown up in the room. I ran out to see my group going on stage – I was late! Without thinking I ran on stage to my place (fortunately at the back) and got there a second before the dance began. This was a real rookie move but fortunately few people noticed.

The rest of the performance went on the same schedule: dancing, then running back to the dressing room to get dressed as quickly as possible to help the little girls with their hair and costumes. It was so hectic and fast paced that the most relaxing moments were on stage. I thought I’d be nervous and that I’d have bonding moments with my fellow dancers but there wasn’t time for this. It was all about getting on stage, getting off and working as fast as possible. The night seemed to go by in five minutes and before I knew it we were putting on our big headdresses and grass skirts for the final.

The final was choreographed so that we saluted the audience row by row with a “ia ora na” (hello or goodbye) and “maururu” (thank you). Whether this was done for the audience or not I have no idea, but from a dancer’s point of view it was the best ending possible. After nine sweaty months of laughing, bickering, sewing and building excitement I could palpably feel the overflow of gratitude from each dancer. To have been on this stage with such a diverse, strong group of women, dancing a thousand-year old tradition in costumes made from this land, Tahiti, reached back into all of our souls and transported us to a timeless place of pure culture. Thank you, we said, to the people who came to see us, to each other and to our teacher Heirani.

On my way off stage I saw one of Heirani’s aids and we stopped and hugged even though that’s rarely done in Tahiti. Some of my new little girl friends came up to me with huge smiles and one held my hand back to the dressing room. Everyone changed back into their street clothes silently. What could we say? After hundreds of hours of dancing and weeks of costume making, it was over. Thinking that I no longer had the performance to look forward to made me feel empty and light, like strong breeze could lift me away. I wondered what I could do in my new home in the US that would fill my life as much as Tahitian dance but I knew there was nothing that could ever compare to this experience. The dance was over for better or for worse and I was on the brink of a new adventure.

Previously —
Tahitian dance chronicles, part one: Getting hooked
Tahitian dance chronicles, part two: Going to To’ata

[Photos: Josh Humbert; Video: Jasmine Humbert]

Tahitian dance chronicles, part two: Going to To’ata

It was February and I’d been taking Tahitian dance classes for six months. I was now loving my twice-weekly wiggle as well as hanging out with my sometimes cranky but always lively retired Tahitian classmates. My hips were really starting to move and my rolling ueue shake was getting so fast that the teacher grouped me into the more competent half of our class.

Now the warm-ups were more complicated, with moves like the afata (hips like a box) that I just couldn’t get right. At least the previously aloof ladies in class were now being helpful.

“Follow me,” Tania would say, bringing me over to copy her. “See you bend the knee, keep it bent, straighten then straighten. Move the hips in a square to the count of four.”

We had also started learning the choreography for two aparima, slow, graceful dances with swaying hips and lots of wave-like arm gestures. The dances were less blatantly sexy than our fast otea, but embodied a quiet feminine beauty.

I still was adamant about not performing in the show until the day our teacher Heirani announced that we were going to start making costumes.”We’ll start with our more [grass skirt] belt and headdress,” she said. “All the feathers, shells and pandanus are provided by the school and we’ll be sewing together Saturday morning.”

Grass skirts, fluffy belts, big hats and a sewing circle: this was a culture freak’s girl-time nirvana. I couldn’t help it, I wanted to wear an outrageous costume made out of leaves and shells and make it myself with the help of the locals. I told everyone that I was going to make the costumes then decide later if I was going to do the show or not. They all nodded calmly as if to say, “yeah, sure, that’s what they all say.”

When I showed up on Saturday to make my first costume I encountered a new surprise. There were at least ten other classes at the dance school and on costume day everyone was there together as a group. I knew almost everyone. There was my good friend Amel, my swimming buddy Niouk and my carpool partner Karine. It dawned on me that although I knew all of these people danced, I had never appreciated what dance had meant in their lives. After 15 years I was suddenly in a club I hadn’t realized existed. For all these years I’d been missing out on this beautiful and essential part of Tahitian culture. Now whenever I saw these friends outside of dance all we talked about was choreography and costumes.

There was a Gala rehearsal and I went. We learned how we needed to move around the stage while doing our moves in relation to the other dancers. I was used to my class of around 15 women but now we were a group of 200, ranging from age five to 75 in all shapes and sizes.

After this rehearsal there was another and then another. A live percussion orchestra played the songs we’d been dancing to in class and suddenly we were a complete, massive and organic piece of performance art. Heirani added a Monday class so we could practice more often and one morning a week was dedicated to costume making. I had a list of plants I needed to gather for my show skirts including strips of red banana trunk fiber and 50 green ‘ti leaves. Every time I was invited over to someone’s house I’d troll their garden for material.

“Yeah I’ll have a beer, and you don’t happen to have a red banana tree or some of those elephant ear vines in your yard do you?”

My fingers were sore from sewing and my legs and abs were sore from dancing so much.

During rehearsals we began to see what the other classes were up to. One day instead of practicing with my group I sat and watched the Advanced-Pro class of beautiful young women. Suddenly my class’ dances were put in perspective: we were the background music. These sirens were so outrageously lovely and moved so fluidly with such sexuality and grace that I realized no one at the Gala would be watching — could be watching — anyone else but them. It dawned on me that the athletic suppleness of Tahitian dance is made for young and limber bodies but the open-hearted culture allows everyone to take part in the fun. We all had our place in the show in the way that suited us best. Every aparima and otea told a story and created a frame in which the Advanced-Pro girls could set the stage on fire. And these dancers were literally going to set the scene aflame with giant fiery batons for one of their fast otea dances; my group would perform a gentle aparima with humble little candles just afterwards.

Our show was supposed to be at the Gauguin Museum Restaurant in the low-key village of Papeari, but there was some problem and the location was no longer available. Heirani announced we would now be dancing at To’ata Amphitheater in Papeete, the biggest venue in the country where all the big professional dances and the Heiva I Tahiti performances take place. Posters were put up all over the island, Heirani, was interviewed about the show for several local TV shows and articles were written about our troupe in the newspaper. Our show would be one of the biggest and first performances of the dance season leading up to the Heiva. Some of the Advanced-Pro dances would go on to the Heiva.

Without really being conscious of what had happened, I had gone from casually taking dance classes to committing to dance in five different numbers in front of over 2000 people in the capital city. But I was ready — I was having a ball and couldn’t have cared less if my hips made thousands of people giggle.

Yesterday: Tahitian dance chronicles, part one: Getting hooked
Tomorrow: Tahitian dance chronicles, part three: Dancing towards a new adventure

[Photos: Celeste Brash]

Tahitian dance chronicles, part one: Getting hooked

Early explorers were struck by its sensuality, Christian missionaries banned it shortly after their arrival, and the open-minded 1960s began to revive it. Today, the uber-fast hip shaking of Tahitian dance is again ever-present in French Polynesia. The best performances can be seen at the Heiva I Tahiti festival at Papeete’s Toa’ata Amphitheater in July, when locals and foreigners flock to watch some of humankind’s most spectacular dance extravaganzas. Accentuated by flamboyant costumes and live traditional percussion orchestras, the festival’s singing and dancing competitions are an unrivaled Polynesian highlight.

I’ve lived in French Polynesia for the last 15 years and have always been in awe of Tahitian dance. Although I’d been tempted to take classes, my busy lifestyle and distance from dance schools made it hard for me to make the time. But when my family and I decided to return to live in the U.S. in the near future, I knew my remaining months in Polynesia would be my last chance to explore the culture’s greatest performing art. I signed up at a school in a nearby town and hoped my schedule would allow me to keep it up. I had no idea what I was really getting myself into.

I’d been to some amateur dance school performances over the years and invariably there were French students whose hips just didn’t move like those of the girls who had grown up in the islands. It sounds mean, but it’s impossible to watch a show without snickering at them a little; everyone does it.

When I told my husband I was going to start dance classes, he immediately said, “OK, but please don’t do a show — that’s just way too embarrassing.”

In other circumstances this might have been rude, but I knew exactly what he meant. No, I was with him on this one: There was no way I was going to dance on stage as the stiff white girl.

I decided to take a morning class, which ended up being full of retired Tahitian ladies. I already knew one or two of them but to my surprise my reception was cool. They had all been dancing together for years and I was crashing their party with my thirty-something-year-old hips that moved like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz. Still, the fast toere wood drum music and my talented teacher, Heirani, made me immediately love learning to fa’atere (quick hip flicks while shuffling on one’s toes) and varu (a figure-eight hip roll) across the wood floor of the hot dance studio. By the end of each class all of us were drenched in sweat and had grins stretched across our faces.

Soon the choreography got more complicated and my ineptitude shone through more. I’ve always been good at remembering stuff I read, but movement memory is another discipline. We’d learn a dance on Wednesday and by Friday I’d have forgotten it. Meanwhile, Isabelle, a French math teacher and one of the few other new students, seemed to have a photographic memory for choreography. Everyone was friendly with Isabelle while I was still the annoying new girl, messing up the dances. Someone organized a luncheon for our class and forgot to invite me. I tried not to be hurt but I was starting to feel like a real loser.

A few months into classes, Heirani announced our first rehearsal.

“We’re doing a show?” I asked in my now expected cluelessness.

“Yes, we do a Gala performance in May every year,” said Timerii, who I’ve known forever but who was aloof with me in class. “You should do it, it’s fun.”

“Oh no,” I said. “I’ll just mess it up for you.”

“Well, as it gets closer you’ll want to do it, you’ll see,” Timerii replied in a surprisingly encouraging way.

I didn’t go to the Gala rehearsal and then left the country for about a month for work. My first day back to class I showed up jetlagged but enthusiastic to learn what I’d missed.

“Ah, Celeste,” said our teacher. “You’re the only one who hasn’t passed the test.”

“Test?”

She put me up at the front of the class — my test was to teach the warm-up session. I was tired and had no idea what to do. I swayed my hips back and forth and waved my arms around a bit but after a few minutes the students just stopped and mumbled things like, “Jeez, can’t you come up with something better than that?”

Just as I was about to run away and never come back I spotted Arvella, a retired school principal, at the back of the room waving at me in the wall-sized mirror. She began doing all the movements I was supposed to be doing and silently motioned me to follow. By looking in the mirror I could cheat and follow her. My students mimicked me even though they knew I was watching Arvella; by the end everyone told me I’d done a splendid job.

It was hard catching up on the choreography I’d missed but the new dance was such a beautiful blend of classic Tahitian moves and modern ideas that I was spellbound and determined to get it right. Tahitian dance is filled with symbolism and this was our Earth otea with arm movements that mimicked sprouting vines; it looked a like Shakira doing Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” An otea is the fast hip-shaking type of dance that Tahiti is famous for and I loved the athletic energy mixed with Polynesian grace.

Suddenly my hips were starting to really wiggle. During our warm-ups where we would all shake our hips as fast as we could in a circular movement called a ueue, I started to get nods of approval from fellow students. Even Heirani seemed pleased.

There was another luncheon and I was invited. We drank vodka-coconut cocktails mid-day on the beach and laughed together.

“Aw, Celeste,” they all cackled. “You have to do the Gala with us. You’ll want to, you’ll see.”

Tomorrow: “Tahitian dance chronicles, part two: Going to To’ata”

[Photos: Josh Humbert and Celeste Brash]